The โBlack and White Minstrel Showโ achieved a definitive standard of excellence in TV entertainment that was never surpassed during its record breaking run on BBC TV and in theatres in London, all over Britain, and throughout Australia and New Zealand. Eleanor Pritchardโs comprehensively researched and beautifully written history of this show business phenomenon, โMinstrel Magicโ,โ makes stimulating and rewarding reading.
Like the musicians and singers she writes about, Eleanorโs book is clearly a labour of love - much like the love that ran through the George Mitchell Choirs โ love for the songs, love for the spectacular productions, love for the groupโs immaculate vocal arrangements, and love for their friendly, supportive and very talented leader, George Mitchell himself.
As a pianist in hotels and piano bars, I built up a big repertoire of popular songs, recognising that everybody has a favourite song, and the more you know the more customers you will please. But my playlist could never compare with the one George compiled for the โBlack and White Minstrel Showโ. I donโt know how he became aware of them all and where he found the sheet music, which he must have needed to prepare the vocal parts.
And that was still not all โ he then had to put them all together for the TV and stage shows. One of the TV showโs producers, Ernest Maxin believed that the way he was able to segue effortlessly from one song to the next was โpure geniusโ. Indeed it was.
Georgeโs genius was combined with that of many other outstanding artists on the show โ great set designers like Stanley Dorfman, musical arrangers of the calibre of Alan Bristow, master choreographers like Roy Gunson, fabulous dancing girls, terrific solo vocalists, and the cream of British swing musicians in the orchestra, including world class trumpeters like Kenny Baker, Stan Roderick and Freddy Clayton. No wonder it achieved audience figures of 21 million, won a Golden Globe at Montreux, and was sold to over 30 countries.
And the BBCโs reaction? True to form, they pulled the plug, bowing to accusations of racism from the new generation of politically correct fanatics. The โBlack and White Minstrel Showโ entertained a world wide audience of millions between 1958 and 1978. A BBC writer, Kate Broome, stated โthat an innocently-intentioned show could, in just a generation, become such a screen pariah is one of the most extraordinary episodes in television history.โ
When it won a Golden Rose at Montreux in 1961, it was regarded as the best light entertainment production in the world, It has never been surpassed - and itโs unlikely it ever will be. In its day, it could draw upon the great song writing that spanned the whole of the twentieth century. Songs as good as the beautifully crafted and engaging standards which George Mitchell arranged to such perfection, are simply not around in the twenty first.
Eleanor Pritchardโs classic volume is a tribute to the dazzling combination of mega talent that was the โBlack and White Minstrel Showโ It is also a mine of information on British show business between 1950 and 1980, not to mention heaps of detail on British radio and television during the same years. It is indeed a magic read.